The invention relates to insect traps, and particularly to a humane insect trap which is mechanically operable by a user to trap, and thus remove, insects alive.
Insects have always been pests within a household; and countless devices for trapping, poisoning and/or otherwise destroying them have been devised. Most of such devices are concerned with the wholesale liquidation of all insects in a home; those which are readily seen, such as spiders, flies, gnats, mosquitos or other flying or crawling varieties, and those which are generally unseen, such as roaches, termites, earwigs, etc.
However, for the occasional spider, earwig, sow bug, or like crawling insect, the only recourse to their capture and/or their removal from a household is to first kill them by squashing them with a flyswatter, a rolled up newspaper, etc., or by stepping on them if the insect is on the floor, and then removing the remains with a piece of paper, tissue or some implement. Such action generally results in the insect being partially or wholly squashed and thus smeared on the ceiling, wall, floor, window, window blinds, etc. The resulting smear is generally very difficult to clean and many times results in permanently staining the area where the insect was destroyed.
In addition, there are many persons who prefer not to destroy an insect but would rather capture it alive for subsequent disposal in the outdoors. These people are faced with the sometimes unpleasant, and generally unsuccessful, prospect of picking up the insect with their fingers, which could result in a bite or other discomfort, or with some implement which generally results in at least partially maiming the insect.
The only other way of removing such an insect alive is with a small box, such as an old-fashioned matchbox which, however, is not always available around the household.